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This is why it matters.

This is why it matters.

Last time I checked 100.8/130=0.775 or enough to get a 1989 Geo Metro about 38 miles

Now lets be completly fair..
While we are throwing percentages all over the places lets balance the playing field..

Yes Gas has 132x10^6 joules
Diesel has 155x10^6 joules
Current solar tech is 19% efficent so you 7 m array makes 10.4KW or 37.4x10^6 on 8 hours.. Most of us eat lunch and stay 8.5-9 hours but I'll wave that.

We'll loosse another 12% or so to charging/recovery of batteries or storing hydrogen so we have 32.9x10^6j left. (big assumption here.. I don't have a clue what we'll lose to hydrogen storage but I did find articles claiming 90% for Phosphoric acid fuel cells in the lab.)

Now.. about that ICE engine in you car.. it's 15-20% efficent at best I'm sorry to say.
So lets pick a good one.. VW TDI diesel.. 48mpg.. I'll bet that hits the 20% mark.
So it is using 31X10^6j of the 155X10^6j avaliable from it's gallon of diesel.. the rest goes as wasted heat and sound.

So in the end.. the Solar/Electric has a slight advantage on paper.. 32.9x10^6j for solar vs 31x10^6j for one of the best turbo deisels using todays technology..

Even if we give the solar/hydrogen/fuelcell car a 40% hit for losses using a conventional fuel cell I still get 19.7x10^6j
That should get me 30miles in a car with comparable performance.

Now some will argue that the electric will have some loss in the drive train and electronic speed controls..
Yes it will but not having a clutch or 5 speed transmision will save some power. I call it a wash..

I'll give the ICE 1 big plus.. In the winter heating the car takes no power.
We could use waste heat from the fuel cell to heat the solar car though..

Better hope you have a place to plug in on Rainy days though.

Sources
http://www.electroauto.com/info/pollmyth.shtml
http://www.howstuffworks.com/diesel3.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphoric_acid_fuel_cell

[Quote]BTW apparently electric cars are about 25% efficient, if hydrogen combustion can do 35% efficiency then it is better than electric charging[/Quote]

OK, don't know where you got 25% for electric cars. battery to wheel efficiency is over 88%. "wheels to wells" efficiency, generating power and all, and USING FOSSIL FUEL TO DO IT, is 28% efficienct overall. The same wheels to wells on ICEs? 14% efficient if you're lucky. Since we can make electricity from wind, we can remove the 39% electric generation efficiency loss there (who cares if wind to electricity isn't efficient, it's free!), then we're talking electric cars being 4-5 times more efficient than ICEs.

Lets also look at CO2 emissions: the equivolent MPG, starting with 1 million BTUs of energy (Oil) is 69MPG for an electric car vs 24MPG for an ICE. and that's assuming we're still using oil as the core source of electricity. With Wind, the MPG equivalent goes to over 150MPG equivalency.

http://www.electroauto.com/info/pollmyth.shtml

OK, Wood gas is NOT H2. It can not be consumed in a fuel cell, and is NOT what we're talking about in the science news today. Wood gas is NOT made from electrolysis, it's made from wood, and have you seen the wood pellet costs over the last 10 years, due to ethanol and wood home heating demand? a SIX FOLD INCREASE!!! It would cost over $7 per gallon to make H2 wood gas today, and it's LESS efficient than oil, and does NOTHING to slow the CO2 output. Wood gas can NOT be made in a competitive price even to oil.

Honda and GM ARE talking about using pure H2. They've discussed liquid high compression in flexitanks, metal infused storage, and more. We are NOT talking about any kind of H2 liquid stable blends here, we do NOT have any financially stable method for doing so, nor do we have enough resource material to support it. This is the same argument I can use against ethanol: We can make enough, if we let 3 billion people starve to death and remove them from the food chain.

The H2 ICEs in showroom cars now are 100% H2 burning, H2 vapor gas engines, with a very small percent of additional gasses added, mostly to ensure you can smell it when it's leaking, and to help with compression. Everything else being worked on is a fuel cell, which could work just as easily with Methane as with H2, and both are bad ideas.

Electrolysis will NOT be done on-site. The space requirements for machinery, expertise and electronics to safely operate it, combined with the need for extremely pure, distilled water, which we can not guarantee consistancy in a pumped grid, is simply not possible. We also have to hdeal with O2 recapture when making H2, you can't just release all that O2 into a city air environment! so now you need underground tanks to capture the O2 as well as H2, and some way of shipping the O2 away instead of bringing the H2 to the station. This solves nothing, and adds complication.

Also, those H2 stations, could yo imaging someone taking out a storage tank with a shaped charge or car bomb? You'd loose a whole city block... ...not to mention, H2, in the BEST scenarios they've come up with, will cost over 200 trillion in infrastructure. Windfuels and electric car grids will cost between 30 and 40 trillion. A much better plan.

Oh, and your precious H2 cars, unless you're talking about super cooled liquid to a prepared tank (which will use energy to stay cold 24/7) then filling an H2 tank is a 3 hour process, to go approxamately 150 miles. Inserting compressed H2 into a tank under pressure generates heat, which must be disipated by radiators under the car. You've seen George bush hook up to an H2 refilling station, but you've never seen anyone say how long filling takes...

I've heard numerous comments to that effect but from what I've read, that is flat out wrong. See Debunking the Myth of EVs and Smokestacks That particular article covers electric vehicles but as argued above, fuel cells and tanks are essentially equivalent to battery storage in their efficiency.

The premise of the E-Fuel 100 MicroFueler is you pay 10K to have a pre-made still (for lack of a better word) to make ethanol. Then you take your home-brew and put it into your car. I'll let others poke holes in this approach.

For $10,000 you can convert your gas powered car to be powered by electricity. "A typical conversion, if it is using all new parts, costs between $5,000 and $10,000 (not counting the cost of the donor vehicle or labor). The costs break down like this:

• Batteries - $1,000 to $2,000
• Motor - $1,000 to $2,000
• Controller - $1,000 to $2,000
• Adapter plate - $500 to $1,000
• Other (motors, wiring, switches, etc.) - $500 to $1,000"

References

1. 1)http://auto.howstuffworks.com/electric-car7.htm
2. 2)http://www.electroauto.com/info/cost.shtml
3. 3)http://www.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/~jarrett/EV/cost.php

Actually, most small (sub compact) size electric cars have similar ranges to gas powered cars

Do you have figures on that? I've always figured that the range for a gasoline car is ~300 miles. All the EV sites I've seen touting economical EVs(excludes the Telsa) is around 100 miles.

As for recharge time, it's all dependant on two factors. Well, one usually ends up being the limiter. The first is battery chemistry. You can only charge a lead-acid battery so fast. NiMH is a bit faster, and you have a better 'fast charge' ability. LiIon is better yet, though it gets really slow near the end. The second is the wattage capacity of your charging system.

If all you have is a 120V outlet, you're only going to be able to push about 1.5KWh into the batteries in an hour. 2KWh for a 'heavy duty' 20Amp dedicated circuit. Switch to a dryer type outlet at 240V@30A, and you're up to 6KWh. Which would fill most EV batteries in about 3 hours. The Tesla, sportscar that it is, has a 53KWh battery. That dryer outlet would take 9 hours to charge it from empty. There's nothing except the pain of handling 000 gauge* wires and running most of a modern house's capacity to it to keep you from charging it in just over an hour. Well, assuming the charging system can keep up. Of course, at that point a transformer and kicking the voltage up to levels only line workers normally see**.

However, electric cars are so much more efficient that california would end up with GOBS more power if they simply redirected the gas for cars into powerplants.

Better yet, just burn the crude oil, better still, build nuclear plants, wind farms, etc... Leave the gasoline for other areas.

Over the last 10 years electric cars have been a niche market.

They've been a niche market for the last 100+. Look up Jay Leno's antique electric car.

However the current technology actually allows for wide spread use and the price tag (especially when you include power/fuel expenses) are actually comperable.

Not yet. You can obtain a ~35 mpg gasoline car for around $15k. Zap wants $14k for a truck with a max speed of 25mph, a payload capacity of 770 pounds, and a range of 30 miles. Great for zipping around a warehouse, not so great for commuting in most areas. The Zap-X, which looks like a car has a ESRP of $60k. The Tesla is $100k.

Conversion kits seem to run around $10k, excluding the batteries.

Even if you assume power is free, in many cases battery aging and replacement needs exceed the cost of the gasoline in and of itself.

It is getting better, but slowly.

With near term developments in super capcitors and batteries, the range of applications will increase, the fueling times will decrease and the cost will drop.

Fueling times, at this point, are generally limited by infrastructure. There's not magic bullet out there to make batteries cheap enough to make them the right choice anytime in the near future, I'm afraid.

*IE bloody huge
**lethal very quickly if not done right. I'm thinking 600-1000V. A thousand volts could handle the charge using 'only' 4 or 5 gauge wire. Still going to look and handle worse than a garden hose full of water.

Everybody likes to point out that EV comes at a cost, and always ignore that EV will slowly pick up the energy from AE or nukes, which have very limited emmisions. A decent page is here.

Basically, what redcane said.

You achieve similar road driving performance with a electric motor rated with 1/3 the HP of a gasoline engine.

Electric motors are rated under load at maximum sustained power. Gasoline ones are measured unloaded peak power. Thus, a '25 hp' electric motor can operate as a 100hp one for a short period of time. This time is limited by heat generation. A good controller will have a heat probe much like the sensors for CPUs today, and limit power before the heat is enough to cause damage. This can be extended out with active cooling, if necessary. The Tesla electric car motor has a fan, for example.

The vast majority of vehicles don't operate at anything near their peak level except for brief periods of time. For example, I still have ~ two thirds of my throttle to go in my four banger at 75 mph. So at max speed I'm operating at ~33%. Multiply by three, I'd be operating an electric motor ~100%, it's most efficient loading. I wouldn't be able to do 80 mph for long periods, but I'd still be able to pass other traffic.

If I live in hill or hot country, I might want to use a 1/2 figure instead. As is, I've been forced to downshift on some steep hills to maintain speed. In an electric vehicle - as long as the hill's short, I'll be fine. If it's a long climb, I might have to slow down.

But anyways, if you want references:
http://www.electroauto.com/catalog/dcmotors.shtml -
http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/motor.html

Sorry, can't find the 1/3 reference at the moment.

I think the issue is not so much 'killing it' as not actually putting any money into the research towards developing usable electric cars.

Someone has to pay all the initial research, and I'm sure that most megacorps would prefer to put that money into something that will continue to generate revenue.

We have perfectly usable electric cars. Electric motors are used for many industrial applications; We're at the point that you could pick a suitable motor from at least a dozen manufacturers. If you're going to be building a couple thousand electric cars, they'll even custom build motors to your specifications quite economically. An electric motor also capable of acting as a generator, with 90+% efficiency that's quite able to last fifty years with minimal maintenance will only cost 20% or so more than a crate gasoline engine of similar horsepower. And the electric engine would actually be able to overpower the gasoline one quite handily in most tests due to it's superior torque curve and the fact that electric motors are rated at their maximum sustained power while gasoline engines are generally rated at their max period.
46HP sustained 105HP peak electric costs $1.5k individually, from an
electric car site. This is about the same as cheapy 4 cylinder crate engines. A 100hp motor runs ~$3.5k. But that'll be able to slaughter most V6's.

Where electric falls down is with the batteries. Again, something used left and right in MP3 players, cell phones, laptops, UPS units, etc...

Building an electric car is simple mechanics at this point. Making it economical will require a breakthrough in cost per kw/h of battery storage, and the same in longevity wouldn't hurt.

note: this is the EV1 argument from "who killed the electric car". Because a hydrogen cell powered vehicle would mandate an engine with many replaceable parts and a company owned refueling infrastructure it would allow control and money making for the large oil corporations who killed the electric car mandate and promote hydrogen vehicles. It is simply not in their best interests to allow the consumers to get vehicles with a low maintenance cost and which they can refuel from multiple sources which make the companies little or no money.

How could the oil companies kill the electric car? The only reason I can think of is collusion between the auto companies and the oil companies. It's not like people can't install charging stations in their home and avoid the oil companies more or less completely with an electric vehicle. You'll need some lubricants, but it'd be a little difficult for them to avoid selling owners of electric vehicles machine oils.

Personally, I think that a clue is that converting a car from gasoline to electric tends to cost more than a new vehicle is worth(a recent google search was $25k to convert), as well as normally costing trunk/storage space. Even a conversion kit, minus batteries, runs ~$10k. Even considering gasoline costs in excess of $4/gallon and assuming your electricity is free you won't break even during the life of the batteries. $25k pays for more than 6k gallons of gasoline. At a moderate 30mpg, that's 180k miles, or 12 years at 15k miles/year.

Let's assume that the batteries are $10k($25k - $10k motor/parts cost -$5k install labor). At 5% interest, that's $500 of gas or 3,750 miles a year you could buy off the interest on the batteries. Let's assume that the batteries last 10 years*. A quick trip to a loan calculator tells me that the monthly payment on a $10k 10 year loan at 5% would be $106.07, or nearly 800 miles/month, 9.5k miles/year equivalent cost to gasoline@$4/gallon. So the cost of the batteries alone nearly equals the cost of gasoline. I've read quotes placing electricity cost at around a third that of gasoline. Assume gasoline costs $3/gallon, battery cost alone is equivalent to 12.7k miles a year.

I've been looking into getting an electric commuter vehicle, but I just can't make the costs match up. My general plan has been to buy a truck for my cargo needs(current vehicle is too small), using that as needed(cargo trips&foul weather). Trading out my commute car for an electric just doesn't make sense.

*Currently would be a high estimate.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) estimates that EVs operating in the Los Angeles Basin would produce 98 percent fewer hydrocarbons, 89 percent fewer oxides of nitrogen, and 99 percent less carbon monoxide than ICE vehicles.

In a study conducted by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, EVs were significantly cleaner over the course of 100,000 miles than ICE cars. The electricity generation process produces less than 100 pounds of pollutants for EVs compared to 3000 pounds for ICE vehicles. (See Table 3)

[...]

CO2 emissions are also significantly lower. Over the course of 100,000 miles, CO2 emissions from EVs are projected to be 10 tons versus 35 tons for ICE vehicles (5).

Many EV critics remain skeptical of such findings because California's mix of power plants is relatively clean compared to that in the rest of the country. However, in Arizona where 67 percent of power plants are coal-fired, a study concluded that EVs would reduce greenhouse gases such as CO2 by 71 percent (6).

[source]

From a pure energy efficiency standpoint (BTUs per mile), electric vehicles are about twice as efficient, even if the electricity generation process is only 39% efficient (about what you'd expect from coal, the lossiest form) (same source).

This doesn't even begin to cover the other benefits of electric cars, which I gush about elsewhere.

What is true for electric cars is doubly true for electric lawnmowers, which are about the most pollutingest things around. Unlike automotive ICEs, mower motors generally don't have catalytic converters. Thus, a little bit of mowing goes a long way.

I'd suggest going in on an electric lawnmower with the neighbors. Not because they're particularly expensive. There is an e-mower at costco.com for about $200, which is a hundred dollars cheaper than any of the mowers at sears.com. Froogle came up with one for $128 from ACE Hardware, and I found an old mower on eBay for fifteen bucks (supposedly it still runs). No, I suggest sharing because it's a way to put five or six mowers out of commission, while saving garage space.

Regarding the speculation that this particular car model might be vastly less efficient than normal electric vehicles, I don't see why you'd expect that. It's probably not that much heavier than a standard EV (fewer batteries, more motor, should just about wash out), and I can't think of anything else that would make this model orders of magnitude less efficient in EV mode.

Some logical part of me does understand that most people are going to put their immediate sense of need or convenience ahead of abstract concepts like conservation. But for the most part, when I hear someone whining about how they can't bear to part with their conveniences, as they hungrily sap what little is left on this increasingly dessicated husk of a planet, it makes me want to go on a random crotch-punching spree. So please, don't bother trying to convince me that you're just being realistic. Fifty more years of

If you're burning fossil fuels to make the electricity, which do you think is more efficient: a car which turns chemical energy directly into kinetic energy, or a car which starts by converting that same fuel first to electricty at the power plant, then transmitting it many miles, then converting it to chemical energy in the battery, then converting that back to electricity, and then using that electricity to produce kinetic energy?

I'm all for reducing pollution, but if electric cars are running off the power grid, aren't they _worse_ than gas cars?

http://www.electroauto.com/

sells and electric-car conversion kit. An inventor in korea has developed an electric generator from sea water

http://www.1000inventions.com/detail2.php?id=942

There are at least a dozen of these types of inventions out there. This is the only one I know of being looked at for commercial scale production. During the Y2K scare there was a small-scale commerically available version of this called the EnviroGen generator.

There is a company in India Reva producing a in-city car (tops out at 35 MPH). Most in-city trips top out at about 35 MPH. Plug this types of cars into a well designed mass-transit system such as DCs Metropolitan Transit bus/train system or Denver's Regional Transit bus/train system and you have a descent solution.

http://www.revaindia.com/

http://www.wmata.com/

http://www.rtd-denver.com/

The link doesn't tell me what kind of batteries the conversion kit uses. Lead-acid? NiMH? Li-ion (if they exist)? I guess unsealed lead-acid, given the quoted price and range, and that is not adequate in terms of pollution, performance, range, battery life, cold weather issues, etc. I want a car, not a toy, and don't live in California.

GM quotes $13.000 for Li-ion Chevy Volt batteries, and the Tesla roadster batteries are better and certainly more expensive. At least $20.000. However, as this link points out, we are comparing apples and oranges here, since the conversion kits don't include labor costs, and GM's and Tesla's calculations certainly do.

Hey now, don't give him crap. He just doesn't know how to use google to actually look up the thing he is ranting about. Heck, the very first search page turns up Tesla Motors, the REVA, and freakin' Global Electric Motorcars, which is a Chrysler company, or even the upcoming Chevy Volt.

Maybe he thinks those electric cars suck (it's ok, a lot of other people think that too - but the Roadster and the Volt look pretty cool to me), he'd rather have a electric Civic or something like that. It's too bad there is a conspiracy to keep people from converting their existing cars to electricity. Oh, wait, no there isn't.

Google is the friend of the ranter... it keeps you from looking retarded.

Still, I need a donor vehicle first, and my minimum range would be around 120 miles, or at least 80 at highway velocities. I know full well that this would double the cost of my battery pack versus yours.

30 minute average for 7 miles? That's only a 14mph average. You have to traverse roads with speeds in excess of 40mph? No redlight?

*scratches head* SoCal is messed up.

Still, I need a donor vehicle first, and my minimum range would be around 120 miles, or at least 80 at highway velocities. I know full well that this would double the cost of my battery pack versus yours.

30 minute average for 7 miles? That's only a 14mph average. You have to traverse roads with speeds in excess of 40mph? No redlight?

*scratches head* SoCal is messed up.

I'm not sure why someone has to ask these exact same questions every time an electric car article shows up.

Yes, of course you have to recharge you car from the grid. The amperage required is not any more than typical household service, particularly if you are willing to let it charge overnight. 220 volts is even better than 110 for charging cars, and it really doesn't take more than your house already has.

As far as the generating issue, it is much cheaper and easier to clean pollution from a large single source than it is millions of mobile sources which are poorly maintained by their owners. Coal might not be that clean, but new coal-fired plants are better than old ones, and they are probably better than the number of gas powered cars it could replace. It is also more efficient, even with transmission losses, than the gas cars. Finally, if you want to make your power plant cleaner at some point in the future it is a bit easier than retrofitting a large number of cars.

These things have been discussed to death all over the net, you obviously have not read anything about this subject at all.

http://www.electroauto.com/info/pollmyth.shtml

appealing. http://www.electroauto.com/index.html Examples of some that are available. They are less shiny, less costly, and still get the same performance as standard plugin systems that are new. I just don't like the way that such cars seem to require a special new look. meh! Just build a nice commuter car with fantastic mileage, that's what we really want.

If you are OK with a vehicle that has a 30 mile range, a top speed under 50 mph, perhaps the e-volks is for you. But in general the frameless construction and torsion bar suspension of the old Beetles makes them an extremely poor choice for electric vehicles (you wouldn't know this from the amazing number of people who've done it... unless you actually talk to those people, that is!).

The Porsche 914, Chevy S-10 pickup, and the Volkswagen Rabbit, on the other hand, all make for excellent conversion vehicles with good range and no "disintegrating suspension" problems from excessive battery weight.

Look for Bruce Parmenter's S-10 or Michael Brown's Voltsrabbit. Or just go to Shari Prange's Electro Automotive site and look at the fine, well supported, time-tested kits for sale there. Shari, Bruce and Michael have been driving electric conversions daily for a decade or more.

I have been watching the EV conversion market for a long time. I have amassed a few quality web sites links for advise on converting a car to EV and some of them sell the parts. The arguments about moving the pollution from tail pipe to smoke stack are just arguments. As long as you don t expect an EV to totally replace an ICE car and want to save energy and money on your daily commute, an EV is great way to go.

Most EVers have one EV car for the daily drive and one ICE or hybrid for longer trips. All of the EVers I have read about get a kick out of sneeking up on friends with their silent cars and out running sports cars from a standing start at the light. Electric motors can provide max torq at any RPM. ICE motors only supply max torq at a very narrow range of RPMs.

The only reason I don t build one myself is the lack cash to buy a host car and materials to convert it. If I had the cash, I would go with an AC based system with nickel metal hydride batteries and maybe some ultra-caps for enhanced acceleration and regenerative braking. AC systems do the best job at regenerative breaking even without ultra-caps. DC systems require special circuits and the motors requre an extra set of brushes for regenerative breaking or reverse.

The sites listed here have complete guides and step-by-step pictures of their examples conversions. The hardest part is understanding how to size the motor you need and the battery pack to run it and where/how to mount the pack. Otherwise anybody that can change a waterpump or alternator can do one of these. It just takes longer and lots of planning.
AC drive systems for electric vehicles
Electro Automotive Catalog
Electro Automotive Electric Car Conversions
High End AC Drive Systems and Power Electronics for Electric Vehicles
AC Propulsion Home
EVA-DC - Build an EV Choosing a Car

I have been watching the EV conversion market for a long time. I have amassed a few quality web sites links for advise on converting a car to EV and some of them sell the parts. The arguments about moving the pollution from tail pipe to smoke stack are just arguments. As long as you don t expect an EV to totally replace an ICE car and want to save energy and money on your daily commute, an EV is great way to go.

Most EVers have one EV car for the daily drive and one ICE or hybrid for longer trips. All of the EVers I have read about get a kick out of sneeking up on friends with their silent cars and out running sports cars from a standing start at the light. Electric motors can provide max torq at any RPM. ICE motors only supply max torq at a very narrow range of RPMs.

The only reason I don t build one myself is the lack cash to buy a host car and materials to convert it. If I had the cash, I would go with an AC based system with nickel metal hydride batteries and maybe some ultra-caps for enhanced acceleration and regenerative braking. AC systems do the best job at regenerative breaking even without ultra-caps. DC systems require special circuits and the motors requre an extra set of brushes for regenerative breaking or reverse.

The sites listed here have complete guides and step-by-step pictures of their examples conversions. The hardest part is understanding how to size the motor you need and the battery pack to run it and where/how to mount the pack. Otherwise anybody that can change a waterpump or alternator can do one of these. It just takes longer and lots of planning.
AC drive systems for electric vehicles
Electro Automotive Catalog
Electro Automotive Electric Car Conversions
High End AC Drive Systems and Power Electronics for Electric Vehicles
AC Propulsion Home
EVA-DC - Build an EV Choosing a Car

and then convert it to electric with a $3000 conversion kit from e-volks. (They also have a $1500 conversion kit, but I'd go with the better one if I were you.)

Please don't.. the e-volts kits are fantastically underpowered for a car. Despite their claims, a 72V series DC vehicle will not do freeway speeds. Best practice in hobbiest conversions has been closer to 120VDC for awhile. The absolute minimum for a freeway EV is 96V and a small car (Geo Metro). Top end at 96V will be 60-65mph, and a 29+ second 0-60mph time. Most Americans will not be comfortable with that level of acceleration. Also e-volks is using a 6.5" diameter motor. Once again 8" motors are the minimum, and most conversion choose 9" motors. A 6.5" motor will be prone to overheating on long grades, and will not live long.

Expect to spend about $8000-$10,000US on the parts and hundreds of hours of labor on a hobbiest conversion. There are a few kits to simplify the process. Canadian EV has an S-10 and Geo kit, and Electric Automotive has Porsche and Rabbit kits.

I have been working on a kit for the 2003-2006 Mazda 3. It is still in the early stages, but if a customer wants to purchase the parts I will do the conversion work for free. I have done a few others, including a 99 Ford Ranger, 1987 Toyota MR2, and assisted in several others. Some notes from my conversion can be found on my website
and TV segment showing the MR2 on the road from the show Austin Now! (about 2/3 thru). Please feel free to email if you have more questions. evinfo AT mindbent.org

From the article found here, in California (which has generally pretty clean power plants), "Over the course of 100,000 miles, CO2 emissions from EVs are projected to be 10 tons versus 35 tons for ICE vehicles". Even on the East Coast, which has much dirtier plants, "EVs in the Northeast would reduce CO emissions by 99.8 percent, volatile organic compounds (VOC) by 90 percent, NOx by 80 percent, and CO2 by as much as 60 percent".

One interesting comparison in the article takes power line inefficiences into account, starts with raw BTUs from the carbon product used for power generation and comes up with an equivalent "69 MPG" for a pure EV. So, you'd have to get an ICE up to 69 MPG (average!) to match it. Note that you cannot directly compare the "200 MPG" of plugin hybrids to this number, since "200 MPG" does not include the petroleum/coal used to generate the power.

> So, it's not actually clear without hard numbers wether or not driving an electric car
> 500 miles requires more fossil fuels than driving a gasoline car 500 miles.

Fortunately, folks have done those calculations, such as here and here and here (pdf) for IC efficiency confirmation from a not-anti-oil source. Here (pdf) is another overview (from the standpoint of CO2 emissions, so electric vehicles come out even better, due to nuclear power and the like).

The short version is that all-electric vehicles are about twice as efficient as gas-powered vehicles -- 28% vs. 14% -- when considered "well-to-wheel" (i.e., start with crude oil/coal and go from there). So if you had enough gas to take a car 500 miles, you could burn the crude oil for electricity instead and drive an electric version of that car 1,000 miles.

All-electric cars have some problems, but overall energy efficiency is not one of them.

...you'll need to do a lot of the DIY, perhaps just in the configuring. You can always sub out the actual work. You'll be retrofitting the entire drive train, plus adding space for batteries as well if you want any sort of at least minimum range before you are forced to use the fueled engine. What you are contemplating is a self propelled generator basically, with you along for the ride. That is in essence what a hybrid is.

Here is a generic link to get you going

http://www.evworld.com/

As another poster pointed out, this is a fabulous new industry idea, some places are doing it, but it's still in the mom and pop shop stage most places, sort of like the original mom and pop whitebox shops back in the haydays of making decent money at it.

pure electric conversion kits and links

http://www.electroauto.com/

Now what I think might be a useful idea, one already built at ACPropulsion, is to make the vehicle pure electric, and have the generator part that makes it a hybrid be in a tow behind trailer. Short range, run pure electric, extended range, tow the trailer.

read about that and more info here, these guys know their stuff

http://www.acpropulsion.com/ACP_FAQs/FAQ_products.

good luck and do a blog on it, would like to see the project as it unfolds

I did a bit of research and found out roughly what it would cost.

It turns out that electricity is extremely cheap per unit of energy. According to these folks, it takes about .4kw per mile of driving. That's about 400 watts, or 1-2 large rooms worth of light bulbs. I believe these figures to be correct because I've seen some similar ones elsewhere.

The national average for electricity is around $ 0.10 per kwh, so this is a phenomenally cheap way to power a car. If we wanted to go 100 miles in a purely electric car, it would take 40 kwh, or $0.40.

I rented a Dodge Neon recently and got only 20mpg from it. (It must have had an old or badly tuned engine). Going 100 miles in the Neon would have taken 5 gallons of gas, at about $ 2.50 a gallon. That's $12.50! Even if I could get the peak mileage of non-hybrid cars, or 40mpg, that's still over $6 to run the car the same number of miles electricity would power for $ 0.40. Even if electric rates doubled, electricity would still be phenomenally cheaper than gas.

So why haven't electric cars taken over the world? Because often you need to go further than the charge range in a day. When I went to Sacramento a year or so ago to visit the Capitol, I decided to try renting an electric car. All it had to do was go about 20 miles, the round trip to and from the Capitol. With extra excursions to find parking and the like, I barely got there and back successfully. On the other hand, I had completely free "fuel". The rental company didn't account for it in any way, because it was, truly, too cheap to meter.

So it seems clear that if you can squeeze a big enough battery into the Prius, you could have the best of both worlds: The economy of having a purely electric car, combined with the "get home" ability of the gas engine.

I should briefly address a specious argument against this idea which seems to have gotten wide currency. Once we Californians got through our tiresome power crisis, we thought that anything that plugged in was Bad. Well, true, during the day when we run hefty air conditioners and the like. But once we've cooled down, demand for power plummets and there is no problem at all with plugging in something like an electric car. In fact, the power companies dearly want this to ramp up demand and enable expensive power plants to run at a higher duty cycle.

Once you express this idea in terms of costs, it becomes, well, pretty obviously a brainy scheme. I wonder why Toyota wants to shut it down, since it seems like a wonderful idea for everyone involved, and really, an amazing PR coup for Toyota.

Hope this helps.

D

All this guy did was build a nice-looking platform around a ton or so of lithium-ion batteries. It's cute, but it doesn't represent a new solution to any problem. Price out a ton of laptop batteries and you get the picture.

GM had an EV1 with a lithium-ion battery option at one point, but that ran the cost through the roof.

I'm not sure what type of VW he's got, but given that he's in Afghanistan I wouldn't be surprised if it's not an air-cooled Type 1 (Beetle). But it could be a Type 2 (Transporter), too. Could even be a Golf -- it's the best-selling model they've got. We Americans are the only market that shuns it in favor of the Bora (Jetta) -- though I love my lil' white Golf IV!

I found a few more electric VWs with a little bit of looking:

Diesel-Electric (1.3L TDI) New Beetle

Electric 1969 Kharmann Ghia (the Ghia is a Beetle derivative)

Electric Rabbit (US Mk1 Golf)

And that's just for starters. VW AG itself considered a hybrid diesel-electric powertrain option for the Concept 1, which later became the New Beetle, but so far only the diesel portion has survived (the TDI is an option in the Golf, Beetle, Jetta, and now the Passat and the Touareg in the US, and in the rest of the model line elsewhere in the world.)

I'd love to see VW build a Golf-based CR-V competitor with a hybrid diesel-electric powertrain and the race-bred DSG transmission.

But yeah, this guy gets geek points from me. :)

According to this site, electric cars produce less emissions even when you count the power plant emissions.

In a study conducted by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, EVs were significantly cleaner over the course of 100,000 miles than ICE cars. The electricity generation process produces less than 100 pounds of pollutants for EVs compared to 3000 pounds for ICE vehicles. (See Table 3)

Engine Type CO ROG NOx Total
Gasoline 2574 262 172 3008 lb.
Diesel 216 73 246 835 lb. Electric 9 5 61 75 lb.

Like Maine?

Even if you provide workable solar power to every single home in the world, you still haven't gotten rid of fossil fuels.

Ah, the old "all or nothing" argument. The grandparent post claimed only that the only real barrier to using solar (Note: not converting all energy sources to solar to the exclusion of any other source).

We need a completely new source of energy, period.

So we should scrap working technologies that are continuing to improve both in cost and efficiency that are already very close to cost competitive for wide use, and try something new?

And nobody's going to buy a car that they have to spend eight hours recharging in order to drive another 100 miles.

Actually, many people have and do. There are also a number of places you can buy parts or kits to convert a standard car.

...if they tried designing electric cars without abandoning all automobile design conventions.

Funny you should mention that. I'm planning on buying a kit from these guys that will convert a Porsche 914 into an electric powered one.

The specs on this 120-volt kit are pretty impressive: A top speed of 85 mph and a ideal range of up to 100 miles. The only thing it lacks is regenerative braking, but hopefully I can come up with something.

Amazingly, the design conventions for the Porsche 914 make it the ideal electric conversion: Low weight, low drag coefficient, ample battery space, etc.

...if they tried designing electric cars without abandoning all automobile design conventions.

Funny you should mention that. I'm planning on buying a kit from these guys that will convert a Porsche 914 into an electric powered one.

The specs on this 120-volt kit are pretty impressive: A top speed of 85 mph and a ideal range of up to 100 miles. The only thing it lacks is regenerative braking, but hopefully I can come up with something.

Amazingly, the design conventions for the Porsche 914 make it the ideal electric conversion: Low weight, low drag coefficient, ample battery space, etc.

Assume a power plant is 80% efficient. Assume electricity distribution is 95% efficient. Assume lead-acid columetric efficiency is 70%. Assume larger electric motors are 90% efficient.

.80*.95*.70*.90 = ~.48

Your total efficiency still exceeds the brake efficiency of most car engines by several percentage points. Also, car engines lose energy at the clutch and transmission, must waste energy while idling, and cannot recoup energy from braking.

The assumptions above are from quick google searches - if you have better/conflicting info, let me know.

The sentence is poorly constructed, but I think they mean that it can function as a generator, not that it can power a pocket-sized ant farm sitting on the seat :-p

It does seem ambitious to say that you could run a farm on it though. It would take 18-wheeler sized horsepower to do it.

Don't be so sure. "An electric car can have anywhere from 96V to over 300V of batteries. During cruising, the car will draw up to 200 amps, and up to 400-500 amps for acceleration." Note that in the US power to the home is about 115 VAC and 100-200 Amps. It takes a tremendous amount of power to accellerate and decelerate a car. Granted, a lot of power can be recaptured regeneratively, but cruising and starting power has to come from somewhere. That's an average car. If you design a chassis for small bus/tractor/hay wagon use, you could easily power 8 first-world homes off of it. You could probably power most of a small third-world town with it.

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Correct, but misleading. Let's look at some facts:

Fact: All power other than nuclear that we use is solar power.

The sun grows plants which were kind enough to get crushed into oil for us. The sun evaporates water, allowing it to move up hill and provide us with hydro. sun = heat = atmospheric convection = windmill. biomass, see oil minus 1 billion years.

Fact: Transitions of state and transport invariably lead to losses in efficiency.

Godd ol' Isaac and his nifty laws. Keep 'em in yer wallet I say! Sun - > plant loses a lot of efficiency. Plant - > oil even more. So, we're not talking about "efficiency" when we talk about oil burning. We're talking about "convenience".

"Obvious" conclusion: We all burn the sun in our cars (unless you have a nuclear car. There's a thought "Car crash, millions die of cancer") We choose how we do that based on convenience not efficiency. Oil, ultimately, is the least efficient way, because even if we start burying leaves right now we'll never be able to generate more in time...

oh yeah, my electric company offers wind power. $15 more a month, which isn't bad. I've got that. Now all I have to do is pick up a voltsrabbit electric conversion kit and I'll be all set.

You wrote: "We need a way to show the oil companies that we're fed up of lining their pockets with cash" which is kind of funny since there are so many ways, and so many organisations doing so.
Rule #1: Buy NO unneccessary plastic items. I make an exception, personally, for my kids' legos. But I don't buy a new case for my computer just because the ATX form came out, I hacksaw the old one. Plastics are essentially a waste product of the petroleum industry.
Rule #2: Buy NOTHING from Exxon. Because we need to convince the Oil Barons that there are some things that don't blow over - and Exxon's had the most egregious crimes as well as being the last vestigal trace of the original Petroleum Trust (Standard Oil = S.O. = Esso = Exxon, you can confirm this easily).
Rule #3: Stop whining and do something. I am converting my truck to gas/electric hybrid ASAP. My bud Pete runs used fryer oil in his (unmodified) Mercedes diesel.

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--Charlie

Sticks and Stones may break my bones but FUD will never concern me.

Well, you and most of the others commenting on this issue are sure willing to spread the FUD around....

1) Car battery disposal is not a major pollution problem (manufacture being another issue). Those little ever-readies that you're tossing blithely into the trash are one of the most pressing ecological issues of our time, but people driving electric cars recycle ALL their batteries (the spent cores are quite valuable) and most gas vehicle batteries are also recycled.

2) Point source pollution (i.e. power plants) is easier to control/prevent than distributed pollution (cf. privately operated internal combustion engines). Gas lawn mowers are one of the principal causes of air pollution in the US, incidentally.

3) Many people are supplied power from hydro, wind, or photovoltaic sources. If you actually become a part of the electric vehicle underground you will find that many people are generating their own power, or use power from commercial "green" providers.

Your statement "yes the energy does come from some coal or oil burning plant" is thus incorrect through overgeneralization, which makes it relatively accurate compared to most of what's being posted here. Your comments on ethanol and car prices are similarly FUDular.

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